


This is What it Means to Say Coeur D'alene Idaho

by tjs_whatnot



Category: Smoke Signals (1998), The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie
Genre: Angst, Chromatic Source, Chromatic Yuletide, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 19:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/pseuds/tjs_whatnot
Summary: And each time, it ends with a story...





	This is What it Means to Say Coeur D'alene Idaho

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotesse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/gifts).



> I have a clearer memory of these characters from the book than the movie... but, I tried really hard--when the two canons contradicted themselves--to come down on the side of the movie.

The first time, they were drunk. Of course they were. Years of foreplay disguised as horseplay, years of shoving the itch under the skin with fumbles with Rez Girls who laughed and gossiped at Victor’s attempts and Thomas’ disinterest, and of course they needed to be drunk to see it through finally.

They were fifteen. Junior had stolen his father’s pick up and the three of them and Sadie had driven it to the lake where they were told the town’s football team was holding a bonfire kegger. They figured--good Indian Scouts that they were--they’d have no problem pilfering a jug or two without detection. They were right.

Victor and Thomas were in the flatbed as they drove along through the woods, looking for a sacred place to get drunk for the first time off boosted beer. They were back there partly because Junior was trying to make his move on Sadie, but mostly because nobody wanted to hear Thomas’ stories. but Victor had gotten good at tuning out the stories when he needed to, and he didn’t want to be a third wheel either.

They sat close so they could pass the jug back and forth; their backs against the window so they wouldn’t have to see Junior’s sloppy attempts at flirting.

Thomas was shouting his truths to the wind and Victor was studying the stars. He wondered if there had ever been, if there ever would be an Indian in space. He imagined not or there would be a national Rez holiday to celebrate him, right? They would sing songs and paint pictures of their likeness. Maybe he could be the first.

Next thing he knew, he was thrown onto Thomas, who went sideways, bumping his head hard on the bed of the truck. Junior had found an empty field and either already drunk, or showing off for Sadie, he decided that donuts were the thing to do.

Victor held on tight to Thomas, his eyes closed, waiting for the world to stop spinning, for gravity to stop pushing him on top of Thomas. But, as he continued to hold on to Thomas, he began to really like the way he felt there with Thomas under him, with one hand balled into fists of Thomas’ jacket, the other clutching at his shoulder. He liked the way he could feel Thomas’ heart pounding from his thumb against Thomas’ neck to his elbow over Thomas’ chest. 

When the world righted itself, they stayed where they were. They drove for a few minutes longer and Victor could feel Thomas’ heart slow to normal levels, but his stayed the same panicked and terrified staccato.

The truck came to a stop, but Victor didn’t notice. The doors opened and slammed shut and there was laughing as Junior and Sadie ran into the woods, but it sounded to Victor as if it was happening in a far off galaxy. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his veins loud in his ears. 

He knew that Thomas liked him. He’d always known--the fact that he wasn’t pushing him away now cemented it though. He also knew that Thomas had no interest in girls. He knew that Thomas would welcome what Victor was considering, he’d just never knew that he’d actually consider it. 

He’d just never felt this way in any of his attempts with girls. Never felt this fear, this urgency, this bone-deep need that blinded him to his surrounding or consequences. 

He took his hands off of Thomas and placed them on each side of him, pushing up so Thomas could move under him. He held his breath waiting to be pushed away or for Thomas to squirm away under him, but he didn’t. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Victor, his eyes boring into Victor’s, reading his thoughts, and smiled. He placed his hands on Victor’s chest, feeling his heart, before he balled his shirt in his fingers and pulled him down to meet his lips that he’d just slickened with his tongue.

He tasted like beer, frybread and something sweet that Victor couldn’t place. Licorice? Jelly beans? He wondered what Thomas tasted in his mouth as his tongue swirled its way in. Thomas tugged Victor’s shirt up and Victor’s eyes shot open. _what was he doing?_ But Thomas just placed his hands flat against Victor’s chest, as if trying to cup his heart in them, to still it perhaps, for it was still beating way too fast, way too hard.

He closed his eyes again and tried to stop thinking so much. He wanted to just have this and nothing else. But after a moment he felt a familiar tightening in his pants that shocked his eyes open again and chilled his blood. He’d been waking up to erections every morning for months now, but this was the very first time he’d gotten one with some one else present.

He panicked. He knew what he did when alone in his room, but here, with someone else? The idea of Thomas knowing that he had done that to him made Victor's stomach churn. He couldn’t even think of the ramifications, what it meant that Thomas had elicited this reaction, nor could he even imagine that Thomas could be feeling anything even close to similar. 

He broke the kiss, blaming it, the heat of it, the wet of it on what was going on at his groin. He rested his heated forehead against Thomas’, relieved that it was damp as well. Thomas whistled through his teeth. “Can I…?” he started, taking his hands from Victor’s chest and moving them down to his belt.

Victor’s mind raced and he could feel the fear rise up his throat and he shot to his feet. “I’ll be right back,” he shouted, jumping off the bed of the truck and running towards the tree line. He ran past the trees, jumping over the downed ones in his path, imagining he was being chased, but what, he didn’t know. He ran until his mind cleared, his heart beat the normal way it was supposed to after this exercise. He ran until he couldn’t see the hurt expression that flashed in Thomas’ eyes right before he'd ran away. Mostly though, he ran until he no longer felt his dick’s throb against his pelvis. 

Finally, he stopped, holding onto a tree and bending over, afraid that he really would throw up through the heavy breathing. He wanted to keep moving forward forever and ever, never go back, never see anyone who knew him, who might be able to see all that he felt suddenly in his eyes, in the way he stood, the way he moved.

But he couldn’t. He had to go back. 

When he got back to the truck, Junior and Sadie were still gone and Thomas was still lying on his back and Victor wondered if he’d moved at all, if maybe he hadn’t been gone as long as he’d supposed. Maybe only a minute had passed.

When he climbed into the bed, he saw that Thomas indeed had moved. He’d slid so he wasn’t in the middle of the bed, but on a side, his hands behind his head. He was staring at the sky and didn’t look at Victor as he lay beside him; far enough to not accidentally touch him, but not too far to give Thomas the idea that he was scared of him and his closeness. He wanted to say something, apologize or laugh it off.

Actually, it wasn’t that he _wanted_ to, more that he thought he _should_ say something. But he couldn’t start. So he mimicked Thomas’ position, putting his hands behind his head and in way of apology said. “Thomas, tell me a story.”

“Yeah?” Thomas asked, looking from the corner of his eye, tilting his head only slightly to make sure he’d heard right, that Victor wasn’t messing with him.

Victor didn’t answer. He just waited.

“Pick a star,” Thomas began after a moment. “And I’ll tell you its story.”

Victor raised his arm and pointed to a star right above their head, it was brighter than the ones around it, all but one. The star next to it was almost its exact twin.

“Ah, I was hoping you’d pick that one,” Thomas Builds The Fire said. 

Victor laughed. Thomas was so full of shit. He couldn’t possibly have a story for _every single star_. But then he looked out of the corner of his eye and laughed harder. Of course Thomas would have a story for each and every star.

“The first man to ever go to space was an Indian, did you know that?” Thomas started.

Victor shot him a look. Had Thomas read his earlier thoughts? It wasn’t the first time if he had. Many of the times he’d been exceptionally mean to Thomas it had been because Thomas had voiced Victor’s hidden truths aloud. He wondered what other thoughts of his Thomas had read that night, but instead of allowing himself to contemplate that, he instead scoffed, “You’re full of shit, cuz.”

“It’s true. And he didn’t even need a space ship. He hitched a ride with an Eagle. They rode to the first cloud and then he caught a ride with another eagle and another, hopping from cloud to cloud until he was way up there past the clouds, beyond our atmosphere.

“Yeah, and he liked it up there. He wanted to stay. There was no strife up there. No war. No BIA. No infomercials or warm beer. He asked the eagle if he could stay. So the eagle turned him into a star so that he could.

“After some time, he became very lonely. He missed his tribe, his people. He missed people all together. The other stars were all from other planets. He was the only human to become a star. He asked the eagle to send him a friend. Someone he could talk his language with, someone who could understand what it had meant to once be human.

“Eagle sent up a white man. At first, the star was not happy. ‘I asked for a friend, someone I could share my sky with, not someone who will take it from me.’

“The eagle scolded him. ‘It’s not your sky. Stars have no race, no color. Besides, no other Indian wanted to come.’

So the white man was turned into a star, and you know what happened?”

“What?” Victor asked, turning, reclining on his elbow.

“After many years, they both forgot that they had ever been different. They forgot they had different skin color, different opportunities on their faraway planet, they forgot that they had ever been anything but those two stars you see there in the sky.”

“And they lived happily ever after?” 

For the first time, Thomas turned his head and smiled at Victor. “Something like that.”

~oOo~

“Hey, Victor, remember your dad--” Thomas called out as Victor walked by him outside the Trading Post.

Victor turned and charged Thomas. It has been years since his father left and had long ago gotten used to Thomas’ obnoxious attempts of bringing him up for reasons he could never understand. But, it had only been a year since that night in the back of the truck. Victor had been avoiding Thomas every since, had been avoiding thinking about that night. Thinking about Thomas.

Sometimes it even worked.

Victor sat on Thomas’ stomach and pounded his knuckles into his face. He punched at the lips he wanted to kiss, nose that had rubbed against his when they were kissing, the eyes that saw in him what no one else saw, what he wasn’t willing to admit himself. The crowd was surrounding them and chanting before an adult thankfully wrenched him off Thomas. Victor put on a good act of kicking and flailing to get back to his attack, but truth was, he didn’t really want to _hurt_ Thomas, he just wanted… wanted… 

He didn’t know what he wanted.

Besides, wanting things got him nowhere. Especially since the things he wanted weren’t things he was _supposed_ to want. 

Like later, when the crowd had dispersed and he was walking under the bleachers at the fair grounds because it was a shortcut home, and there was Thomas. Just him and Thomas. Again he wanted to assault him, but this time, not with his fist--though he did use it to grab at Victor’s shirt, pulling roughly to him.

“Why are you always following me?”

“I’m not.”

“Why are you always everywhere I am?”

“It’s a small reservation.”

“Why are you always… always… _there_?”

“Where?”

Victor leaned forward, not sure if he wanted to kiss Thomas or headbutt him. It was the fact that Thomas didn’t even flinch that decided it for Victor. He gently pressed his lips to Thomas’ fat and bloodied ones before pulling away and answering the question. “In my head. Why are you always there?”

Thomas just smiled, as if knowing the answer but not wanting to give it away. Instead he kissed Victor back. 

Victor licked at Thomas’ lips to gain entrance and Thomas winced.

“Does it--”

“I’m fine,” Thomas answered, this time when they kissed, it was his tongue working its way tentatively into Victor’s mouth, as if afraid he’d be rejected… or worse.

He wasn’t. 

Victor clung to him, wrapped his hand tightly around Thomas’ waist with one hand, his shoulder with the other. He twirled and danced his tongue along Thomas’ before plunging it into Thomas’ mouth as if digging for gold. 

This time when he felt his pants tighten, he didn’t freeze, he didn’t run. He was still scared. Terrified really. But more than that, intrigued and so very hungry.

Victor heard Thomas moan and he thought that Thomas must feel the same, but then he tasted the rusty, salt taste of blood and pulled away. The kissing had opened the fresh wound of his fat lip and Victor swallowed hard, but it didn’t dissipate his shame.

“I’m… I’m…” he started but couldn’t finish. He buried his head on Thomas’ neck and deflected into his skin. “I just miss him…”

Thomas held him tight. Chanting a low hum in Victor’s ear and at first, Victor thought it was just about grief. Then he felt that he hadn’t been the only one with a hard-on. He felt Thomas’ against his and for a moment, all else was forgotten.

They just held on tight to each other, trying to be subtle as they adjusted themselves so they could feel the friction of too many clothes and zippers rubbing against each other in thrusts of hips. Thomas’ breath was hot on Victor’s throat and the sensation of it had him pushing Victor against the slats of the bleachers and humping against him wanting so much more and fearing that want and his inability to deny himself it.

Thomas growled and clutched at Victor’s back pockets, pulling in frustration, as if not able to get close enough. His breathing was loud and came out in gasps and pleads. He was speaking another language that Victor didn’t know, but understood. He was close to losing himself entirely, close to coming with friction alone and it was everything and not nearly enough.

And then it was done. They were both wet, breathing heavy and unable to look at each other in the eyes. 

Just when they were beginning to remember they belonged in the world of people and obligations, they heard voices walk by. They both flinched, either afraid of being caught, of being punched again. They pulled away from each other and froze as they waited for the noises to move away.

“I uh… got to go…” Victor said, stepping even further away.

“Yeah, okay.”

Victor turned around and began to leave, but turned back when Thomas called out. “Victor.”

“Yeah?”

Thomas shuffled his feet for a moment then said loud, as if pushing the words out against their will. “I sleep with my window open.”

Victor looked at him for a minute, trying to figure out what he meant. Then his eyes widened. “Okay.”

~oOo~

He told himself he would never go. He would never climb into Thomas' room. Would never scratch that bothersome itch. He was good at avoiding Thomas and the feelings that came with him in the day time with people around. He could do it at night too. Could keep him out of his thoughts. He could.

But it was only a few nights later and Victor couldn’t sleep, couldn’t get Thomas out of his mind, the feel of him, the taste of him. He wondered for the first time, why did he have to? Why couldn’t he have what he wanted? If Thomas wanted it too? And of course he did. They’d both made their interests clear. 

He threw his hoodie on over his night shirt and sweatpants and slipped into his Vans and out of his house. He could barely keep his feet from running full sprint the blocks to Thomas’ house, to his room. He had to know, had to see what else they could be together, alone in a room. Alone in a room with a bed. 

The house was dark, even Thomas’ room. He knocked on it anyway, he’d come too far. He heard something that sounded like Thomas falling out of his bed, and a moment later, a light switched on. Thomas was wearing sweatpants and nothing else. He squinted at the window, then reached for his glasses. Victor wrenched the window open while he waited for Thomas to orientate himself from a dead sleep and came to met him. 

“Hey, cuz,” Victor started, but stopped when he got a good look at Thomas. The canvas of his face was painted with the purples and blues of bruises and broken skin. He looked worse now then he had days ago when it had happened. When he had done this.

Thomas stood back and Victor crawled through the window.

“Jesus! I am…” he reached out to touch Thomas’ face, but Thomas flinched and Victor froze, hand inches away.

“It’s alright. Doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

Whatever he had planned for that night, whatever things he’d imagined on the way over, in the year since they’d started down this path, it was gone. His shame and guilt had wiped it away.

“Hey Thomas,” he started, his head bowed. “Tell me a story.”

Victor looked up in time to watch Thomas’ face change as his eyes shone and he smiled wide. Victor always marveled at how toothy and pure Thomas’ smile was, how it hid no agendas, no rebukes, nothing but joy. It baffled Victor most days, annoyed him on bad days and there were days, like this one, where he prided himself in being the one to _make_ him smile.

Thomas pointed to the window. “Pick a tree, I’ll tell you its story.”

Victor smiled and went to the window. In the distance, past the dry, flat and barren reservation borders, was Saint Joe’s with its millions of trees. They were too far to differentiate, but he still pointed out. “That one.”

Thomas followed his finger. “Ah, I was hoping you’d pick that one.”

Victor rolled his eyes as they both went to Thomas’ bed and laid down. Instinctively, Victor curled into Thomas the Storyteller, his head resting on Thomas’ shoulder. Like he had when he’d came into his parents’ bedroom as a child, needing to hear them tell him that his nightmares weren’t real, or that things he’d heard shouted from parties in his yard weren’t true or worth believing. 

“The lodgepole pine is an Indian tree. It is a tree of fire and a tree of rebirth. If there were no fires, there would be no lodgepole pine. Their seeds are produced and dispersed in fire. Like Indians, they were here before time and, like Indians, they will be here long after the world burns.

“They’re called lodgepole pines because we build our houses out of them, have since the days when we lived in lodges. Some ancestors say that fire is our punishment for using these trees. That we take a risk with every tree we cut down, every frame, walls and roof we make with them. But, I don’t see it that way.”

“You don’t?” Victor asked, sitting up a bit to look at Thomas. “You of all people?”

“Because of the fire that took my parents, took my home?”

Victor nodded.

Thomas was quiet for a while and Victor wondered if he’d be too distracted with his thoughts to finish his story.

“I wonder about them. Of course I do. But, it’s hard to miss what you don’t remember. It’s hard to think I’m missing something that important without realizing that I still have a lot of important things. I have this house, my grandmother. The tribe, the reservation, my stories… _you_.”

Victor froze. Fighting the overwhelming need to bolt. To jump out of the window and run forever. Run _away_ forever. With that one word, that one simple confession spoken aloud, it was all too real.

But, thankfully, just before that feeling consumed him, Thomas chuckled below him; as if to reassure Victor to relax. That it didn’t mean anything. Or at least didn’t mean what he’d thought.

“Besides, I can’t be mad at the lodgepole. Especially not that one you pointed out. The seeds of that particular tree was created from that fire. The tree was born from the life I could have had; from my home, my parents. All the possibilities never to be realized.

“I choose to not blame the fire but to celebrate the seed that endured. To honor my parents by honoring the tree where their spirits reside.”

Victor wrapped his arms tighter around Thomas who just clung to him in silence. No other words were needed. Not then and not in the years that passed.

~oOo~

Victor came to the Falls like he’d told Thomas he would on their way back from Arizona. He dumped the ashes into the water, watching them swirl and disintegrate, merge and wash away his father. He lay on the bridge, curled up and shaking with his grief, his rage and his longing. He didn’t notice the feet of the people walking passed, hurried and worried. He didn’t pay attention to the ones that stopped either, not until he felt someone sit down beside him. For a minute he prepared for battle with a stranger, a derelict or drunk. But then he stilled. He just _knew_. And so when Thomas placed his hand between his shoulder blades and began to chant, Victor sighed. The song was quiet and breathy at first, but then, as if competing with the rush of water below them, louder and more intense. Victor didn’t realize the effect on his psyche until he sort of melted into the cement below him instead of raging against it.

He liked the feel of Thomas’ hand on his back, so was relieved that when he sat up, that Thomas kept it where it had been. 

“How’d you know I’d be here?” Victor asked, turning his face away to wipe the tears away.

“I didn’t,” Thomas answered, holding up the jar that had once held his life savings, and now held his share of Arnold Joseph. “I came to the water for the same reason that you did.”

“What are the odds?” Victor said, still in barely more than a whisper. Something about the volume of the water made him feel like he should whisper his truths into it instead of rising above it.

“For normal people, I think the odds are astronomical. For us? Pretty predictable actually.”

“What do you mean? Are you suggesting we’re not normal?” he asked with a wink.

Thomas smiled. “No. I was suggesting that we have a connection. Not just a Indian cousin thing. Even when we hated each other, and those brief times when we...uh...didn’t...we were always bonded in some weird way.”

Victor looked down at the glass jar in Thomas hand and answered. “My dad.”

“Your dad?”

“He’s what bonded us first.” Victor takes a deep breath. “Thomas, I have to tell you something. Something that you might not want to know, something that might forever change your views on things you’ve held to for as long as you had memory.”

Thomas looked concerned, but after a swallow, nodded his consent. 

Victor took a deep breath and just spit it out. “My father started the fire that killed your parents.”

Thomas looked at him for a long time and Victor couldn’t read his thoughts at all. Then he smiled slowly and Victor was baffled.

“You think I don’t know that?”

Victor’s mouth fell open. “How?”

“He told me. A long time ago, I was so young. I didn’t even have my glasses, so when this big shadow fell in my small bedroom one night, I thought it was a bear.” He laughed in remembrance. “The way the shadow stumbled around only made it worse.

“He was drunk. So drunk. He was crying. Big, fat, ugly Indian tears.”

“I know those tears.”

“I really don’t know if he even remembered that guilt soaked confession. And even if he hadn’t told me, I would have known. His guilt manifested itself in a way, I’m ashamed to admit, I reveled in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Victor, your father was the only father I ever knew. In big and small ways he was there for me when I really needed a father. I knew it was his guilt, and I didn't care. I needed it, and him and that's all that mattered. When I brought him up to you after he left it wasn’t to make you feel bad, even though I know it did. It was because I missed him too. I thought that was something we could share.” 

Victor held Thomas' earnest and pure gaze for as long as his guilt would allow. Then he turned his gaze to the roaring water below and let its volume drown out his own feelings. He didn’t know what to say.

“Thomas, tell me a story.”

Thomas’ eyes lit up and he smiled wide, as if all were forgiven. “Pick a rock and I will tell you its story.”

Victor laughed loud before pointing down to one of the boulders sticking up from the water’s pounding.

“Ah, I was hoping you’d pick that one.”

Victor bumped his shoulder into Thomas’ and everything felt just right. For the first time, he yearned to hold Thomas, _be_ with Thomas and it wasn’t fueled by fear, guilt or anger. And as Thomas began his story, Victor slid his arm along Victor’s, twined his fingers around his fingers and listened.

~The End~


End file.
